[To follow The Ewellogy, please click on Leave a Comment above, fill in your name and email, and check the box: Notify me of new posts by email. If your comment is, “Notify me,” it won’t post publicly. If you don’t start to receive the blog by email right away, please write to me at bob@ewell.com, and I will see that you get on the list.]

I’ve been listening to The Shack on Audible the past couple weeks. I read it when it first came out in 2007. Not everyone likes the book, which is the story of a father’s confrontation with God in the shack in the woods of northwest Oregon where his youngest daughter was murdered three years before. Without giving complete endorsement or condemnation of the book, I will say that it contains many useful insights into the nature of God and our relationship with him, as well as tackling the hard issue of evil.

Today, I just want to highlight one amusing scene. Jesus wants to take the father, Mack, to the other side of the lake. Naturally(!), Jesus intends to walk across the lake to get there. Mack has problems believing he can walk on water, he doesn’t quite know how to get into the water from the dock, etc. Finally, he steps in, and he and Jesus walk across the lake together.

Fast forward several hours, and they are ready to return. Now Mack is filled with confidence, and he walks right into the water, surprised that he finds himself walking on the bottom of the lake! Undaunted, he continues, the water approaching his knees. Finally, he feels himself rising up through the water until he finds himself walking on top again. At that point, he looks back and sees that Jesus had entered the water behind him. Jesus says,

It works better when we do it together!

There it is. Forgetting “together” is the same error the Israelites made in Joshua 7. 

Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai, which is near Beth-aven, east of Bethel, and said to them, “Go up and spy out the land.” And the men went up and spied out Ai. And they returned to Joshua and said to him, “Do not have all the people go up, but let about two or three thousand men go up and attack Ai. Do not make the whole people toil up there, for they are few.” So about three thousand men went up there from the people. And they fled before the men of Ai, and the men of Ai killed about thirty-six of their men… (Joshua 7.2 – 5, ESV)

“We can do this! After all, we just defeated Jericho!” Really? Who defeated Jericho? 

I’m not sure the song we learned as children is quite accurate when it says, “Each victory will help you some other to win.” That seems to imply that we won the previous victory in our own strength. 

Peter got it right in the aftermath of the healing of the lame man in Acts 3.

But Peter said, “…In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk!” And he took him by the right hand and raised him up, and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong. And leaping up he stood and began to walk, and entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God. And all the people saw him walking and praising God, and recognized him as the one who sat at the Beautiful Gate of the temple, asking for alms. And they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him…And when Peter saw it he addressed the people: “Men of Israel, why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we have made him walk?” (Acts 3.6 – 12, ESV, emphasis mine)

I am the vine, you are the branches…without me, you can do nothing. (John 15.5, NKJV)